


The Children of the Rhiannsu

by Ysrith



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Character Death, Elnor has a heart of gold, F/M, M/M, Major character whump, Mythology - Freeform, Narek pays for his crimes, No happy endings, Other, PTSD, Qowat Milwat, Romance, Romulan Culture, Romulan Mythology, Romulan Ninja Warrior Nuns rule, Romulan Sexuality, There is no happy Narek/Soji ending, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24291301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysrith/pseuds/Ysrith
Summary: Picks up 6 months after the end of season one.Narek was taken into Federation custody.Raffi is not convinced Ganmadan has been prevented.
Relationships: Elnor/Narek (Star Trek), Elnor/Narek/OFC, Narek/OFC, Narek/Soji (past metions), Raffi Musiker & Jean-Luc Picard, Raffi Musiker/Seven of Nine
Comments: 9
Kudos: 23





	The Children of the Rhiannsu

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Narek /Romulan centric story set in the Star Trek Picard universe. While the crew of La Sirena will play a part  
> they are not the main focus. 
> 
> Be warned in this fic there will be no great Soji/Narek reunion (as that ship is annihilated), but they may gain an understanding by the end.  
> Elnor also has a role to play, as have the people on Vashti and the Qowat MIlat. There will be lots of exploration of Romulan sexual dynamics and the fecked up brain of a ex Tal Shiar spy with sister issues. And we have the unresolved issue of the message to the Supersynths to deal with.
> 
> Contains descriptions of torture, mental illness, PTSD
> 
> Later there will be explorations of Romulan relationships and sexual dynamics, including M/M and F/M/M pairings.
> 
> No happy endings, as there always is a price to pay.

**Part 1 – The Magician**

_Let me tell you the tale of the Shen’ji and Q’Lan, little one, of how they fought the Ch’Khalagu and saved the children of the Rhiannsu._

_Q’Lan was a warrior, tall and fierce, her gleaming blade steady and strong. He was a magician, clever and quick, who loved this proud fierce woman. The story of how they became lovers you know well, of how quick and clever Shen’ji stole her warrior heart, but now I will tell you the story of their passing, of how they stood before the demon horde alone and unafraid and slew the Ch’Khalagu in their thousands so that the Mothers could flee with the children of the fallen to the ships which would bring them to safety. All the others were dead, warriors of many houses, great and proud, all dead before the demon-horde. All that was left were a handful of women and children and the magician and his lover. A thousand demons stood before them blocking their way to the small ships that would take them to safety. So standing side by side on a narrow mountain pass, Q’Lan drew her blade and Shen’ji cast his spells, a desperate last stance buying time for the Mothers to flee with their charges. But the number of the Ch’Khalagu was many and as fierce and as great a warrior as Q’Lan was, she was only one, and soon she took a lethal blow and fell. Shen’ji screamed in anguish and cradled her body in his arms, a lone figure surrounded by the demon horde, who were afraid to come closer as they feared his magic. And well they should, for he had knowledge and power of things dark and terrible. In the distance he saw the Mothers reach the ships and he knew that it had to end now. So he called upon a deep dark magic, born out of his pain and heartbreak, and unleashed terror and fury upon the demon-horde. From the shore the Mothers saw a bright light rise into the heavens and the earth shook and a terrible wind roared and flattened them to the ground, rocking the ships on their moorings. When they looked up again, the land before them was scorched and barren, but the demon-horde was gone. The youngest of the Mothers made her way back to the pass where the two lovers had made their last stand. She found their bodies there, but no trace of the demon-horde was left. The dark haired man lay bent over, his lover in his arms. She reached out to touch them but as her hand grazed his cloak, their bodies faded from her touch and all that was left of their passing was a small dark stone that had fallen from Shenji’s hand. The Mother picked it up. The small stone was cracked but it was warm to her touch and as she held it, she felt it pulse like a heartbeat. When they finally made it across the cold sea to the kingdom on the other shore, she placed it in the hands of the young clan chief K’len, who as you well know loved Shen’ji and Q’Lan, and had sent them on this terrible mission. Now his heart was broken and he fell to the ground and mourned. Later when many moons had passed, and he had finally made peace with the deaths of his lovers, K’Len took the small broken stone and buried in the depths of the great wood, hiding it away from all who might find it. For there was a terrible power in that stone, a power that could never be unleashed again, for it would burn the world. It was the broken heart of Shen’ji the clever who had loved Q’Lan more than life itself._

Chapter One

His feet were cold. The man gathered himself smaller to try and preserve some heat. He shivered. The cell was always cold and he could never get warm. It was a clever tactic, keeping the temperature so low, as was the fact that they fed him just enough to stay alive but not really enough to keep him properly nourished. Tactics the Tal Shiar would be proud of. Keep him cold and weak, break down his defences. Not that it would do any good. Every now and again they would drag him out of this small frigid room for questioning, a pointless exercise in pain and brutality. He had no answers for the questions they asked. He did not know the identities of the Tal Shiar agents who had infiltrated Starfleet. He could not give them names he did not know. He could not tell them secrets he was not privy to. He tried to tell them this, but they did not listen. So he stopped talking at all. Preserve his strength and retreat into his own mind and eventually it would end and he would be thrown back into the cold and the dark again, a bit more bruised and broken each time. He let his head fall back against the wall. Everything ached. They were not gentle his interrogators. The bruises still had not faded from the last round, but the hazy relief of the drugs they used on him had long since worn off, bringing him back to this cold painful reality. He was going to die here in Federation custody and no one would even know or care when he was gone. Another corpse for the glory of the Zhat Vash. He closed his eyes. It was all he deserved really.

==============

“Ganmadan, that’s what he called it, their version of the Apocalypse. It was pretty grim stuff JL, all death and torture and demons eating children.”

Picard watched as Raffi sat down on the plush sofa and made herself comfortable. He turned and stared out the window into the sunlit fields beyond. Holotechnology was truly marvellous. If he opened the window he could almost believe he was in his chateau in France.

“Any you believe that it was a belief in this ancient legend that drove the Zhat Vash to commit their acts of terror and murder?” Picard asked her, staring out at the fields outside.

“But it wasn’t myth, was it?” Raffi responded.

Picard turned to look at her, wondering where she was going with this. Raffi was brilliant, but she could sometimes get distracted. However, he reminded himself, she had been right about the Romulan involvement in the Mars tragedy. She had been right about many things. So when Raffi had approached him and asked him what he knew about the Romulan apocalypse myth, he was intrigued about where she was going with it.

“I mean, they were right, about Seb-Cheneb, the Destroyer, what was coming,” Raffi continued.

Picard could not deny that. He turned back towards her.

“Raffi, have you considered the fact that they simply tool the information gained from the Admonition and correlated it with their old stories?” Picard moved over to where she sat.

Raffi sighed. She had known it would be difficult to convince Picard about the significance of the myth, but the story Narek had told her had left her disturbed. What if the young Romulan had been right? What if the tale was true? What if it really was history?

“Look we know they have been here in our galaxy. They left the Admonition. The Zhat Vash may have thought it a warning from an ancient civilization, but we know it was not. We know that the synthetic super-race left it. Doesn’t that scare you JL? We knew they wiped out one culture in our galaxy. Who’s to say they could not do it again?”

She had a point Picard acknowledged. It was beyond doubt that those synthetic beings had already been in the Alpha Quadrant.

“Do you really think that there could be something in this story of Ganmadan?” he asked her.

“Narek believed it was history, not myth!”

“Ah our young spy,” he responded, “whose various lies led us all to near destruction in the first place? Can you really trust anything he said?”

“JL, our knowledge of Romulan belief systems is limited. We barely understand their culture, let alone their religion and mythology. But I think he really believed that story.”

Picard considered what she was saying for a short while.

“I suppose it would be useful to learn more about this.”

“And that’s the problem, I don’t think the Romulans are just going to give us any information.”

Picard paused and sat down in the chair opposite her.

“We could ask Elnor?”

“I already have JL and he doesn’t know much. Ganmadan was a story told to little children to scare them, he said, and he has no knowledge of where the Admonition could be located. But we know someone who might,” she replied, leaning forward on the sofa.

Picard sighed. He could see where she was going with this and he did not like it. Picard had had few dealings with the Romulan spy Narek before he had been transferred into Federation custody, but he knew that the young man had left a trail of destruction and death behind him.

“Raffi that is not a good idea.”

“I know,” she waved her hand in the air. “He is scum. He deserves what he gets, but he is the only person we know with access to this information. He’s our best chance of finding out where this Admonition is and more about these Supersynths.”

“Supersynths?” Picard looked at her, “You really believe that they still pose a threat?”

Raffi stood up, her features now animated.

“Soji sent up a great big flare, shouting “come and save us” and it was cut off mid-burst. What would have happened if that was Starfleet receiving that message? Think about it. We would have answered the call.”

She moved closer and touched his arm.

“Jean Luc, what if he was right? What if it really was history? What if they come back?”

Picard sighed. It was too good to hope this was all over, wasn’t it? Raffi was right about these "Supersynths" and she was right about the Tal Shiar agent. Given what had happened on Coppelius and the recently acquired knowledge that the Zhat Vash were responsible for the disaster on Mars, relations with the Romulans were at an all-time low. Their only possible source of information at present was the Tal Shiar agent.

He had visited the spy once when he was being held on Coppelius. Dr Jurati had come to him concerned about the prisoner. The Synthetics on Coppelius had no real understanding of the needs of organic lifeforms and they had locked the young Romulan away without access to food and water. Agnes had come to Picard concerned about his weakened state. Picard had decided to visit the spy and see him for himself. Picard was not sure what he had expected, but the young man, hardly much older than Elnor really, sitting against the wall of the cell was not it. He looked thin and drawn and it was obvious he was suffering from dehydration. He glared up at Picard when he saw him on the other side of the force field but remained silent.

“Dr Jurati said you have been denied food and water. Is that true?” Picard asked.

The Romulan moved his head to the side and looked at Picard intently. There was intelligence in those eyes. This one was clever, thought Picard, smart, calculating. He is wondering how to respond.

“Yes”, a brief rasp of a response, nothing more.

Picard could see that the other man’s lip were cracked. How long had he been here? Three, four days. A human would be in a bad state by now, but he was Romulan. So not as weak as he was portraying.

“I will instruct your guards to give you food and water.” The Romulan said nothing, just looked past him.

“Tell me,” asked Picard, “do you even feel any regret for the things you have done? For what you did do Soji?”

For a brief moment the young Romulan looked up and Picard saw something like pain and shame in his eyes, then he turned away towards to wall.

“I did what I had to to save my people” he muttered quietly.

Picard felt a flare of anger rise. The Zhat Vash were truly fanatics. He turned and walked away. He had asked the Synths to ensure that the younger man had food and water and then contacted the Federation to come and take the prisoner.

Picard broke from his thoughts.

"What makes you think he will talk to us Raffi?” he asked. It was unlikely that the Zhat Vash operative would be interested in sharing his secrets.

“He came to us JL,” she responded, “Yes I think he is a believer but he is not a zealot. He could have just tried to destroy that settlement himself. But he came to us for help, to blow up that beacon, to stop the message, not kill them all. He gave himself into our hands. He begged Soji to stop. I think he genuinely cared for her.”

“He tried to murder her Raffi,” Picard rubbed his temples.

“He was trying to save his people. To save the universe he said.”

“His actions towards Soji are unforgivable.”

“No, they are not, but it is easy for us to judge. Tell me what would you have done in his position? If every life in our universe was in danger and the only way to save them was to kill one person?” Raffi looked at him, “Because I sure as hell know that if it came down to that one person or the whole world I might have done the same.”

Picard rubbed his temples. She was right, damn her. It was easy to have the moral high ground, but he remembered his own actions with the Borg, his own ruthless need to destroy them all. Faced with that knowledge of what he was truly capable of, could he really truly condemn what the Romulan had done, given that in fact the Romulan fears of the Destroyers had been proven right, and if Raffi was right about their potential return, then they needed to know everything that they could about this new enemy.

“OK Raffi, I will contact Admiral Clancy and see if we can get access to him,” Picard paused. “But Raffi please don’t mention this to Soji. He hurt her deeply, betrayed her. There is no need for her to know about this.”

===============

Of course things are never that simple. A few days later Picard sat at his desk and stared at the data-screen before him. He had contacted Clancy only to be told that the Romulan agent had been handed over to Section 31. Given the crisis in Starfleet security following the revelation that Commander Oh was in fact a Romulan agent, Picard was not surprised. But Picard was still disturbed by the news. Section 31 were ruthless. Picard had wanted the Romulan spy far away from Coppelius, far away from Soji. He remember the look of pain and shame in young Romulan’s eyes. Was he even still alive?

Concerned he had asked Raffi to investigate and see if she could find out anything from her various contacts. A few days later she had handed him the data-cube.

“My contact says it is pretty brutal JL.” she had warned him

That was an understatement. He had been warned but still he had not been truly prepared for what he had seen on screen. It was brutal. The data-cube contained video clips of the Romulan’s interrogations. At first the young spy had pleaded with his interrogators, later he just screamed, but eventually even that stopped. No matter what they had done, beatings, drugs, worse he had remained silent, staring into the distance. By the end of the vid-logs, he appeared broken and detached. There was nothing left of the man from the cell on Coppelius.

Picard felt a deep sense of shame. Yes this young man was no innocent. He was Zhat Vash and who knows what crimes he had already committed. He had seduced Soji and tried to murder her. But as Picard watched the silent broken figure in his cell on the vid-feed he could not but feel that he was responsible for this. He had given the man over to the Federation. He had expected them to behave like civilised beings, and instead they had thrown him to the wolves. They were no better that the Zhat Vash. Picard closed down the feed at the sound of Raffi behind him.

“Fuck, no-one deserves that! How is he still even alive?” Raffi looked pale and ill. “What are we going to do JL?”

Picard sighed. She was right. He had handed Narek over to the Federation, never even thinking about the ramifications. He closed his eyes and he saw the Romulan screaming on the vid-feed. He was so young, barely more than a boy. What would he have done in the same situation? Faced with the extinction of all you knew. The Romulan had claimed that he had loved Soji. He had tried to stop her destroying them all. He had taken a chance and it had failed. He had lost everything.

All those terrible things done to protect the Romulan people. All those terrible acts and yet only one person held to blame. Picard sighed. He knew what he needed to do. Now he just needed to convince the rest of the crew.


End file.
